LEBANON / CLUSTER BOMBS

Towards the end of the Second World War German technicians developed a new type of bomb which, when fired, would open up and release hundreds of smaller bombs that would then rain down on targets spread over a wide area.

These weapons were further advanced during the Cold War and have since become standard weaponry for most conventional armies.

There are many types but collectively, they are known as cluster bombs.

SOUNDBITE (English) Federic Gras, Team Leader, Mines Advisory Group (MAG):
"So you have one submunition here with a local marking - it's a pile of stones to warn people. You have one impact here - you can see the crater. You have another submunition here, and another one over there. So it's quite heavily contaminated here. It's not only in the olive groves, it's in all the village. Submunitions have been scattered throughout the village and we found them absolutely everywhere. We found them in olive trees, in houses, on roofs, in gardens. They are very dangerous because it's a very sensitive submunition and maybe 30 percent of them do not explode when they hit the ground and a lot of kids or people want to remove or play with them. They take them, they play a bit with them and when the submunition explodes that's when people around are killed or injured."

In July 2006, war reared its ugly head once more in Lebanon when Hezbollah fighters stole across the border and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.
Israel's response was immediate and furious.

Huge amounts of ordnance were dropped on southern Lebanon leaving village after village in ruins.

Hezbollah responded by firing hundreds of rockets into civilian areas of northern Israel.
But the cruelest legacy of the conflict was the widespread use of cluster bombs by Israel - an estimated one million of which now sit unexploded on the ground, lying in wait for the unsuspecting.

Ninety percent of them were dropped in the last 72 hours of the conflict when the ceasefire was imminent.

Children in particular are at risk.

Children like 10 year old Hassan - who had his stomach torn open when a girl he was playing with dropped a cluster bomb at his feet.

Lucky to be alive, Hassan now makes it his mission to warn other kids about the dangers.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hassan:
"When she dropped it, it exploded. My intestines fell out and landed on my hands. I started running and shouting, "God is great"!
My intestines deflated and I lost my hearing. I was running along but I couldn't hear a thing."
My intestines deflated and I lost my hearing. I was running along but I couldn't hear a thing."

Since the end of the war more than a hundred civilians have been killed or injured by cluster bombs.

Wafaa Hattab owns a hair salon in Nabatiye, and the shrapnel pockmarks on the mirror are a stark reminder of the day cluster bombs tore her family apart.

One day in August, her eleven year old son Hadi stepped on a cluster bomb outside the shop.
And when his uncle rushed out to help, he too stepped on a bomb. Both were killed.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic)Wafaa Hattab:
"I remember his cute chubby legs ? I can't say anymore"

SOUNDBITE (English) Dahlya Farhan, Media Officer, United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre:
"All of south Lebanon is contaminated. There is no such area that is only contaminated by the border or by the Tyre area, or south of the Litani only because they are also north of the Litani. Basically it's everywhere you go. Everywhere you go you will have the problem of unexploded ordnance, specifically cluster bombs. Each one of these red circles, they refer to a cluster bomb strike location. We are sending teams to different areas to do the clearance but we are trying to focus on agriculture at the moment because people already lost a lot and there is loans and debts and this is their main source of living."

Cluster bombs are not just putting lives at stake but livelihoods too.

Clearance teams visit affected areas advising farmers to stay clear of their fields, but they can only clear small areas at a time.

Leaving farmers with a stark choice.

They can play it safe - leave their fields alone and lose a years work - or, take their lives into their own hands and attempt to harvest.

Fields like this banana grove are being cleared by mine action groups - but teams can only work as fast as the environment and resources allow.

In this thick vegetation, cluster bombs are found buried under piles of dead leaves and sometimes in the trees themselves.

Instead of waiting till clearance teams turn up, many farmers are going into the fields and picking up the bombs themselves.

Like many farmers, Hussein Al Khishiu, is falsely under the impression that there is a safe way to clear the land of the unexploded bomblets. He and his workers have collected dozens, miraculously without injury.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Farmer, Hussein al Khishiu:
"We heard that if you handle it carefully, then it won't explode. We picked them up to protect the children and to have access to our land and harvest. We need to work! Otherwise, our time and work will be wasted. We just don't have a choice."

The financial burden on farmers is huge and those who don't want to clear the land themselves are paying others to do it.

Bahjat Abdallah has been organizing help for farmers to clear their land by finding day labourers to take on the work. US$3 a cluster is the going rate.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Bahjat Abdallah:
"One of the workers in the field told us not to expose ourselves to danger. He said there was a man specialized in dealing with explosives and that he would clear the land. The worker brought him here and we agreed to pay US$3 for each cluster that he removed and detonated."

But it was only when his friend Saleh Krishd was injured that Bahjat realized just how dangerous cluster bombs really are.

Saleh lost three toes to a cluster bomb while working in a field of lemons and if the infection doesn't clear up soon, then he'll lose the leg as well.

Saleh and his family no longer dare enter the fields, and they are already feeling the financial strain of a lost harvest.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Saleh Krishd:
"I have two sons who are studying .One is in school and the other is being trained. Now they will both have to quit school and work."

Efforts to minimize casualties include warning labels on bottles of water distributed by UNICEF, while the Lebanese army and other mine clearance groups are handing out leaflets.

Clearance teams are working as fast as they can throughout the south, and each afternoon the hillside farms echo with the frequent thud of detonation as deminers destroy their deadly cache.

But even by the best estimates it will take until the end of 2007 to clear all the cluster bombs from the fields of southern Lebanon.

And until people can go back into their farms without fear then normal life will remain a distant dream.

In the first two months since the end of the conflict, more than 150 civilians have been killed or injured by cluster bombs.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and a number of Human Rights groups are now campaigning for a total ban on the use of cluster bombs in populated areas.

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